Ready to serve those in need in Mashpee

Thursday

Nov 26, 2009 at 2:00 AMNov 26, 2009 at 6:05 AM

MASHPEE — Linda Steele is peeling potatoes, lots of potatoes. Ted Nadolny is dicing onions, barely shedding a tear. And Mike Campbell is prepping turkeys, hustling them out of their wrappers and into roasting pans.

GEORGE BRENNAN

MASHPEE — Linda Steele is peeling potatoes, lots of potatoes. Ted Nadolny is dicing onions, barely shedding a tear. And Mike Campbell is prepping turkeys, hustling them out of their wrappers and into roasting pans.

Ask them who came up with the idea to provide Thanksgiving dinner for needy individuals in Mashpee, and Nadolny will point at Campbell.

Nadolny, the recently retired executive director of the Mashpee Chamber of Commerce — the dinner's main sponsor — smiles and recalls it being more of a mutual idea.

There is enough praise to pass around — just as there will be plenty of turkey, potatoes, stuffing and pies dished out this afternoon in the dining hall at Camp Farley, the 4H camp situated on Mashpee-Wakeby Pond, where Campbell is director.

From 1 to 2:30 p.m., volunteers will serve Thanksgiving dinner to an estimated 80 Mashpee area residents who have signed up for the free meal. Another 80 will be delivered to individuals who can't get out to the community event.

The chamber asks people to sign up in advance, but they won't turn anyone away as long as there's enough food, Nadolny said. "We try to overdo it," he said. Any leftovers are packaged up and brought to shut-ins, he said.

For nine years, Nadolny and Campbell have led a small band of volunteers in putting together the traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

The volunteer crew has been together for the full nine years and seems to like the banter as much as the pride they feel in pulling it all together.

"It's like a reunion," Nadolny said.

Yesterday's prep work took about five hours, and the crew, with reinforcements, was back at it early this morning.

"It's more than just a meal," Campbell said. "We are providing a place to come together — a place to share some camaraderie."

The dining hall is decorated with white linen table cloths covered in brown paper, linen napkins and colorful centerpieces made from mums, magnolias, daisies, rhododendron leaves, honeysuckle branches and grasses clipped from a local garden.

Today, a fire will be roaring in the dining room fireplace.

And the setting? Well, with windows overlooking Mashpee-Wakeby Pond and a forest full of trees shedding their leaves, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more inviting location for a feast meant to celebrate the fall harvest.

"We match the rustic with the refined," said a woman who wanted no attention for her Martha Stewart-like skills. "We want to make it so people feel like they're at home."